The hot temperatures on May 1st across most of England and Wales were at least three times as likely due to climate change - and you can see that on the map below from Climate Central's Climate Shift Index.

This useful tool is not a straight temperature map - it shows how statistically unlikely temperatures would be if we hadn't heated up our atmosphere, land and oceans with fossil fuels.

You can see that there are extremely abnomally high temperatures in the Middle East, Pakistan, Afghanistan and western India, South East Asia, much of sub-Saharan Africa, and Brazil. 

And then you might wonder, "Why haven't I seen anything about these heatwaves on the news?" The truth is that record-breaking temperatures elsewhere in the world rarely get a mention in UK media, unless they are in southern Europe where many of us take holidays.

These records are broken so frequently that, in a way, abnormal heat has become the 'new normal'. However, this phrase is misleading if it is taken to imply that things will stay the same - unless we stop burning fossil fuels, the weather will continue becoming more extreme.

The UK's Royal Society was founded in 1660. Among its fellows have been numbered some of the most notable scientists in human history, such as Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein. Election as a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) is still a significant honour, for scientists who are not just eminent in their field, but have made a significant contribution to scientific knowledge.

Since 2018, Elon Musk has been among their number.

To carry out groundbreaking scientific research, it is not necessary, of course, to be a nice person. However the Royal Society does have a Code of Conduct. It has not, apparently, expelled a Fellow in the last 150 years. But in August 2024 a group of 74 Fellows sent a letter to the President of the Royal Society, raising concerns about Musk's conduct and asking whether he was "a fit and proper person to hold the considerable honour of being a Fellow of the Royal Society".

The Royal Society's refusal to take action led in November to Professor Dorothy Bishop resigning as a Fellow, explaining her reasons for doing so on her blog.

Since Donald Trump's inauguration of President as the United States, Musk has wreaked havoc, taking a leading role in attempts to dismantle vital US government functions. This goes beyond even the concerns about his politics and support for the far right. As detailed below, his actions are causing massive global harm and include direct attacks on scientific research. 

In September 2024, scientists and NGO representatives wrote to Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, calling on the government to pause plans to invest £1bn in carbon capture and storage to produce blue hydrogen (from fossil gas) and to capture carbon dioxide from new gas-fired power stations. (see coverage in the Guardian here)

One of the main concerns raised  in our letter was that even if carbon capture is successful (and the technology has a dubious record) it cannot compensate for the upstream emissions from methane leaks, transport and processing of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the US.

A follow up letter expanding on some of the concerns was sent a month later, but it was not until 10th February that we received a reply from minister Sarah Jones at DESNZ (the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero). Despite waiting five months for this reply, it does not address the problem that the UK's current plans seem to rely on increased imports fracked gas from the US. These have very high associated emissions because of methane leakages during production and transport, and a significant climate impact.

We will continue to campaign on this issue. Last year the UK Supreme Court ruled that planning applications for fossil fuel projects must take into account 'downstream emissions' from burning the fossil fuels extracted. We believe it is just as vital that upstream emissions should be taken into account.